060 Game Restart

Lin Wan and I immediately got dressed and climbed out of bed. She used her "speed" ability to accelerate the healing of my wounds.

I never expected that the speed ability could be applied like this.

After putting on our shoes, the three of us left the dormitory building.

Ever since moving into this dorm, I hadn’t really paid attention to how many people lived here.

Our room was on the top floor, seventh floor, room 726. Below were six more floors of dorms; each floor was a corridor with twenty-six rooms—sixteen on the sunny side, ten on the shaded—because four rooms faced the washrooms and toilets, and another two faced the stairwells.

Walking down the corridor past a few rooms, I noticed that most doors on the seventh floor were locked, making it impossible to tell whether anyone lived inside.

When we reached room 712, I saw its door was open and signaled Chen Hao to knock.

He slowly pushed the door open. Instantly, a chilling murderous intent burst forth. Lin Wan immediately activated her "speed" ability, and the three of us swiftly dodged the objects flying from the room.

I looked closely—three knives had embedded themselves straight into the door of the room opposite.

“Damn!”

“You?!”

“It’s you all?”

As I cursed, Lin Wan recognized the room’s inhabitant, and so did he recognize us.

“Zhang Yisheng, why aren’t you staying in the medical school dorm? What brings you here?”

Realizing this was Zhang Yisheng’s room, I asked, puzzled.

“Here?” Zhang Yisheng didn’t even lift his head, continuing to polish his scalpel absentmindedly.

“If I recall, the business school dorm has already been sealed off. Your dorm? Ha.”

“Zhang Yisheng, you—!” Before he finished, Chen Hao burst out in anger.

The first dorm incident had turned the business building into a dead zone, with less than a hundred survivors. Many of our brothers, including Chen Hao and me, had been among them. Zhang Yisheng bringing it up again inevitably made us feel uneasy.

I held Chen Hao back and whispered to him. He managed to suppress his temper and stepped behind me once more.

“Not much strength, but quite the temper. Heh.”

Zhang Yisheng threw out another taunt, but after my words, Chen Hao completely ignored his contempt.

“Zhang Yisheng, why are you here?”

Lin Wan asked, having regained her composure, standing at the doorway and surveying the room.

Both beds were covered with pure white sheets, like a hospital ward. One wall bore a diagram of acupuncture points; the other was lined with scalpels of various shapes and sizes. The floor was so clean it reflected our images. It was clear Zhang Yisheng had a particular obsession with white—even his wooden desk was wrapped in white wallpaper.

His obsession with cleanliness was fully realized here.

“Lin Wan, you don’t live here either, do you?”

Instead of answering, Zhang Yisheng turned the question on her.

“What brings you here?”

“Zhang Yisheng, you—”

Lin Wan was about to retort when the door across from Zhang Yisheng’s creaked open.

A rotund figure, as round as a ball, yawned and stepped out.

“What’s all this noise? What’s the fuss?”

“It’s the middle of the day—can’t a man get some rest? Fatty here needs his sleep!”

To my surprise, it was Qian Duoduo.

“Fatty Qian, what are you doing here?”

Hearing my voice, he paused, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“Zijian, are you getting forgetful?”

“Aren’t we all living in this dorm building now?”

“Huh? Lin Wan, Chen Hao? Is that so?”

I glanced at Chen Hao; he shook his head, and so did Lin Wan.

“Hey,” Zhang Yisheng called. I turned and caught the paper he tossed over.

On it was a notice and a floor plan.

“We moved in today.”

“You didn’t know?”

Qian Duoduo scratched his head and, from somewhere, produced a chicken drumstick, munching noisily.

“Lin Wan, look.”

I showed the paper to Lin Wan and Chen Hao.

She frowned—clearly, none of us knew about this.

The notice said that everyone participating in this life-and-death trial was to move here, with each floor assigned to a class.

Our class was on the seventh floor, followed by classes two, three, four, five, six, and seven below.

But class two had already been entirely eliminated in the last round, so the sixth floor should be empty now.

“Lin Wan, you have a room here too.”

I noticed she had been assigned a room in our building.

“725.”

“Right next to ours.”

Han Xue, Lin Xiayue, Hu Xing’er, Su Mu, and the others were all here; almost everyone in our class had a room on this floor.

Why did we know nothing about this?

“Brother Zijian,” Qian Duoduo muttered, his words muffled by the food in his mouth.

“Have you guys not checked the WeChat group lately?”

That reminded me to take out my phone.

It was odd—before, we were all glued to our phones, but lately, we barely touched them.

Partly it was because we were constantly caught up in these deadly trials, with little time for anything else. And the few people we could contact were usually within reach anyway. I mostly used my phone only to contact Han Xue.

Now, with the phone signal blocked, we could only use the campus Wi-Fi and talk with preset WeChat contacts and groups.

I opened our new class group—sure enough, there was a notice.

“Teacher Wang: All students, please move into your new dorms before tonight. Refer to the attached floor plan for your room number.”

It was the same sheet Zhang Yisheng had just handed me.

“If there’s nothing else, please leave my room,” Zhang Yisheng said coldly. The scalpels embedded in Qian Duoduo’s door seemed to be pulled by an invisible force, flying back into his hand.

The three of us wisely stepped away from his doorway.

“Fatty Qian, do you live here alone? Where are your two sidekicks?”

I asked casually, not expecting Qian Duoduo to stop chewing, his voice suddenly subdued.

“They died in the last trial.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just turned and slammed his door shut.

“Lin Wan, it seems it’s not that there are fewer people living here.”

“Mm.” She nodded. The three of us decided to return to our room to discuss things—finding the Nightmare Ghost would have to wait.

“The engineering school’s dorm must have been cleared out too,” I said. “That’s probably why those three chose to meet there.”

“Didn’t expect you’d come back by chance, not knowing anything—like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead rat,” Lin Wan murmured, her brow furrowed. “They’ve gathered us all together for easier management. Now we’re even more constrained.”

Back in our room, Lin Wan and I sat on the lower bunk, while Chen Hao took the other side.

According to the new room assignments, this was now home to just Chen Hao and me.

Tan Tou and Sun Cheng were in one room, Wu Mingran and Pang Dongqiang in another. Lin Xiayue and Hu Xing’er shared, as did Han Xue and Wen Lingyu.

Han Xue’s room was 707, at the other end of the corridor.

I was about to find her to discuss recent events when all three of our phones rang at once.

My phone was always on silent—someone must have tampered with them.

First, the signal was cut. Then, the apps were changed, contacts manipulated, and now, the phone could be forced to ring.

A system notification popped up on my screen:

“The first class’s second trial is about to begin.

This time, the participants are Zhou Zhenyu, Lin Zijian, Su Mu, Qian Duoduo, He Fei, Hu Xing’er, Zheng Wei, and Xu Tingting.

The eight listed must gather in the Art School’s dance studio within one hour.”